If we can make a World Cup then we can make a North American league or a North American Cup. The main idea is that we have to grow together to compete. If not, there is only going to be the rich guys in Europe and the rest of the world.

According to this interpretation, the proposed combined league would raise the quality of football in North America while also allowing the continent to compete with “the rich guys” on the other side of the Atlantic. As tends to be the case with such transnational ventures, the rhetoric is dominated by positive catchwords which only serve to distort the reality that the proposed venture would likely be harmful to North American football in the long term.

One reason that the positive perspective is highlighted by mainstream news outlets like ESPN is that such a mega-league would likely be very profitable—both for media and sporting elites in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The downside, of course, is that—as is usually the case regarding globalist policies—the average Canadian, Mexican, and American footballer would suffer.

This is because by centralizing football in the three countries, competition for spaces in the hypothetical league would increase. Given that most top-flight football leagues in the world have between 16 to 20 teams, one would have to assume that this proposed league would be similar. Given that MLS is aiming for 28 teams in the next to years—and given that Mexico’s Liga MX has 18 teams—there are a total of 46 potential teams. To make such a league feasible, this number would have to be cut down. This, in turn, would mean greater competition for players due to the internationalization of the labor market. Currently, Mexican players are mainly competing with other Mexican players for spots on Liga MX teams; American and Canadian players are mainly competing with other American and Mexican players for spots on MLS teams. By erasing the national boundaries of these leagues, however, would mean a greater pool of players and, as such, less chances of gaining employment. Instead of seeking employment in two different entities, essentially, players would be forced to seek employment in one entity; this centralization—and monopolization—would be devastating in terms of players’ choices.

Having just taught my students about wealth inequality in the United States, I am keenly aware of just how dangerous the centralization of wealth—and, relatedly, power—can be. Indeed, the American Sociologist C. Wright Mills pointed out more than fifty years ago that the centralization of power—and wealth—in the United States would have devastating consequences. Now, this is not to ignore that inequality is not a defining feature of capitalism; indeed it is a defining feature of humanity; our outcomes—based on our choices—can never be truly equal. The problem is that this inequality has been exaggerated by globalism and globalization. Markets have increased in number, which has resulted in an equal increase in profits. Yet because these markets—and sources of profit—do not correspond to existing national boundaries (indeed, they are often outside of them), the wealthiest citizens no longer have any stake in the well-being of their fellow citizens. After all, it doesn’t matter too much to—say—Apple if Americans can buy iPhones; if they can sell those same iPhones in China or Germany or Madagascar than the American citizen no longer matters to them. Essentially, corporate responsibility no longer matters. And the same would happen in football; the well-being of the Mexican, Canadian, or American footballer would no longer matter.

This increasing centralization of wealth in fewer and fewer corporate hands—the big 5 of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook, for example—is not good. Nor is the centralization of power in the hands of the federal government. And if these centralizations—which C. Wright Mills warned us about—aren’t good, then why would we assume that the centralization of sports would be good? The reality is that the creation of one North American football league would increase the centralization of power and money in football on the continent, and it will have devastating consequences for aspiring footballers in Canada, Mexico, and the United States alike, who would face the loss of playing opportunities. This is why we owe it to ourselves—regardless of which country we are citizens of—to stand up for our countries (and our football leagues) in the face of predatory globalism and predatory globalization.

The 2018 World Cup is sorting out to be less of a sporting event and more of a propaganda machine for the budding culture industry of globalism and globalization. While events on the pitch play out—like Mexico’s shock upset of defending champion Germany—they are interpreted through the lens of a globalist culture industry which prefers to tie what happens on the field to events off the field; indeed Germany’s loss has been blamed on the row over German players appearing in a photo with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a topic I have written about. Of course, this has not been the only instance where politics and off the field concerns have stolen the spotlight from what we should be focusing on: the sporting competition on the field.

Former U.S. national team star Landon Donovan caused “outrage” after appearing in a Wells Fargo ad to announce his support for Mexico. In the advertisement (which can be seen here) Mr. Donovan says “Wells Fargo and I are inviting anyone in need of a team to root for to join us in cheering for the Mexican national team. Vamos Mexico!”. In a Tweet announcing his support for the United States’ southern neighbor, Mr. Donovan appears with a scarf reading “my other team is Mexico”.

It didn’t take long for other former U.S. national team players to respond to Mr. Donovan’s comments. On his Instagram account, Cobi Jones said “Nah man! Mexico is not ‘my team.’ Mexico is a rival in CONCACAF. In sport there is something sacred about rivalries. Meaning and history behind them! I don’t see Brazil cheering for Argentina. England cheering for Germany. Barca for Madrid. Man U for Liverpool or Lakers for Clippers. Yankees/Red Sox etc … It’s sports and you’re allowed to cheer against someone. Let alone your regional rival!”. Former striker and current ESPN analyst Taylor Twellman also joined in, saying on Twitter “I’d rather cut off my toe than ‘root for [Mexican flag] and I’m on the outside on this one, but how could I root for my/our rival? Imagine any [Chilean] players rooting for [Argentina] today. I can’t imagine how American Outlaws would feel if I rooted for Mexico … but then again I’m old school.” Of course, these emotional responses are both warranted and also understandable.

The previous generation of U.S. soccer players proudly represented their country at a time when football infrastructure was all but non-existent in the United States. Despite this lack of institutional support, they successfully qualified for the 1990 World Cup and built football in the country through their dedication and hard work. Therefore, when a player like Landon Donovan comes out and—in the name of a sponsorship deal with Wells Fargo—seemingly ignores the blood and sweat which (literally) went into building U.S. soccer from the ground up, it is bound to touch a nerve.

Unfortunately, however, comments like Mr. Donovan’s have come to be expected in a world which favors political correctness and culture industry catchwords over real emotional attachments. Indeed, the fact that Mr. Donovan prefers attachment to global capital (in the form of Wells Fargo) and culture industry compliant catchwords—over attachment to his nation—is evident in his response to criticism. His post in response both attempts to reaffirm his patriotism while also catering to the dominant strand of globalist one dimensional thought: “I believe in supporting each other and building bridges, not barriers”. Mr. Donovan is looking to defend himself by falling back on the politically correct trope of “building bridges”. What Mr. Donovan does not understand is that none of his former team-mates are advocating “building barriers”; rather they are just pointing out the rather obvious fact that it is ok to not support your rival; not supporting a rival does not mean hating a rival. Unfortunately, however, in the modern world it is the utopic ideas of “love trumping hate” which tend to frame events in a zero-sum game of “love” vs. “hate”. There can be no middle ground, and we see similar interpretations as regards other off the field developments during the 2018 World Cup.

When the coach of the South Korean national team Shin Tae-Young “admitted that his team mixed around its jersey numbers for recent training sessions and warm-up games because he believes Westerners find it difficult to ‘distinguish between Asians’, USA today deemed the comments “extraordinary”. Of course, there is nothing very “extraordinary” about the comments; Mr. Tae-Young’s move was a strategic one in footballing terms yet, in the world of one-dimensional thought, USA Today needed to frame the move in terms of the politically correct discourse created by the globalist culture industry. At the same time, there was outrage when the Mexican team’s fans chanted “homophobic slurs”. Of course, much of the outrage in The Guardian’s story comes from “Professors” at U.S. Universities who have very little knowledge of first hand football culture. Most real football fans know that, in the stadium, one’s sexual preference is irrelevant; what matters is supporting your team. Unfortunately for football fans of all sexual orientations, however, this fake outrage—and virtue signaling—only serves to further alienate football fans from one another. These divisions mirror the divisions created by the global culture industry in other walks of life.

Consumers of sports and main (lame)stream sports media prefer to have their own sense of “morality” and “virtue” confirmed, rather than look at the bigger picture. This is why CNN gleeefully reports on Russian oligarch (and Chelsea owner) Roman Abramovich’s program to bring seriously ill children to the World Cup. While Mr. Abramovich’s actions are of course laudable, they gloss over the cut-throat manner in which the oligarch made his billions during the free-for-all of privatization following the collapse of the Soviet Union. CNN prefers to sing the praises of virtue without even focusing on how the money was made in the first place.

In sum, football fans this summer should be cognizant of the fact that the FIFA World Cup is far from a sporting event; instead, it—like many international events—has become an incubator for the inculcation (indoctrination?) of the globalist culture industry. This culture industry is attempting to gradually homogenize the emotions of the world under the guise of a sporting event. What we all must remember, however, is that manufactured emotions are not real in any sense of the word, rather they are represent a gradual pacification of the world in order to create more docile bodies—in the Foucauldian sense—to participate in consumerism on a global scale.